Animated characters have recently become a significant part of the entertainment and marketing fields. Consider, for example, movie characters "E.T." and "Gremlin" and the rock and roll creatures at Show-Biz Pizza Restaurants and Walt Disney. In most every instance, the ultimate goal has been to develop an animal-like creature having a human personality.
Unfortunately, animated characters in the prior art have been unable to simulate human life accurately. In simpler applications, the animated character comprises pneumatic and/or hydraulic devices that are remotely controlled according to a preprogrammed operation. Due to programming limitations, however, such animated characters are unable to react spontaneously to their surrounding environment with appropriate and realistic movements and speech. More complex animated characters in the prior art have been implemented for the movie screen by splicing different film shootings. For example, in one film shooting the animated character may be in the form o f a puppet, while in other film shootings the animated character may be a person in a costume or a robot which is programmed for a particular sequence of steps.